


don't you see i want my life to be something more than long

by nosecoffee



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Aaron's a Reporter, Adoption, F/M, Highlander AU, M/M, Minor Character Death/s, Pining, Revenge, Scars, Suicide mention, Wars, immortality AU, murder mention, rape mention
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-05
Updated: 2017-01-05
Packaged: 2018-09-15 00:31:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,126
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9211823
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nosecoffee/pseuds/nosecoffee
Summary: "What would you want? If you were to beat him, receive the prize, what would you want?" Aaron asked, looking earnest and curious."Mortality." Aaron frowned at this. "I can't stand to watch someone I love outlive me. And I want to be able to have children. More than anything, I want children." Alex licked his lips. "But there's only me and Laurens left to stop him, just the two of us, out of thousands, so what chance do we have?"





	

**Author's Note:**

> Title from 'Corner of the Sky' from Pippin

"Okay, okay, let me get this straight." Aaron said, slamming the front-loader washing machine closed. Laundromat's were few and far between these days, and yet Aaron still managed to find one. How, Alex mused, wasn't clear, but it was definitely still impressive. "You're an immortal man, fighting other immortal men-"

"And women." Alex interrupted and watched Aaron process it

"And women," he allowed, slowly, "and have been for hundreds of years?"

Alex nodded, grinning toothily at his companion. "Yep."

Aaron ran his hand down his face, leaning against his washing machine. "That's crazy."

The place was practically empty except for them and cashier who had earphones in. "You think so? Imagine how it must have been for me, all bloody and dead, in my Scottish warrior getup, waking up to find my mother calling me a witch, as well as the rest of my people." Alex rolled his eyes, still smiling, and sat down next to Aaron's laundry basket.

"That really happened?" Aaron asked, sitting down on the other side of the basket.

"Oh yeah. That's my origin story." Alex agreed.

"Scottish Warrior Getup?"

"My father was Scottish, my mother was Dutch, they lived with my dad's family in the highlands until dad died in battle." He explained and watched Aaron process it.

Alex couldn't deny that Aaron was handling this better than, say, Hercules, or Philip.

Not quite as well as Angelica, or Eliza, but coming in at a rough third place.

Alex would throw confetti if he had it.

"When were you born?" Aaron inquired.

"You ask a lot of questions." Alex remarked in reply.

"I'm just trying to understand." The other man shrugged, casually disinterested. "You don't have to tell me."

Alex grinned, shoving the basket off the bench. "Ah, my dear Aaron, now I want to. You're getting the full Alexander Hamilton history now. Take notes, I might test you later."

"You can't be serious!" Aaron exclaimed, making the cashier look up for a brief second.

"Of course I'm not serious! It's story time not a goddamn book report." The immortal laughed. "So, I was born in the Scottish highlands in the early-to-mid-1500's, my father died when I was ten, battling a rival Scottish people. Ironically, the first time I died, I was also battling that same tribe. I was stabbed in the stomach."

Alex grimaced, remembering the wound. There was still a lengthy scar from the bottom of his rib cage to his naval where the sword had sliced. "They didn't like that I didn't die. How ironic is that? Begging me to live and then scorning me the minute I did so."

Alex shrugged the angst off - no point in dwelling on things too far gone to fix - and pulled a smile back on. "Anyway, my brother - James - he reasoned with them, said to just banish me instead of trying to destroy me. I think they would've figured out how to in the end, so I guess I owe my life to him."

"That's intense." Aaron commented. "How old were you?"

Alex sighed. "Fifteen."

Aaron blanched. "Fifteen? Are you serious?"

"Dead serious." Alex said and then laughed. "I holed up in England for a while, met a girl. She owned a farm, the rest of her family was dead or somewhere else. She let me stay with her. Eventually we fell in love. She didn't care in the least that I couldn't die. Said 'if you put bread on the table and keep the fire going, you're fine by me'."

"What was her name?"

"Angelica. She was beautiful and clever. We weren't married but she wanted kids." Alex pursed his lips and looked at the washing machine, Aaron's sheets spinning and thumping against the door. "That's where I met the second hurdle." He looked at Aaron, who had acquired a somber expression. "Because I'm immortal, I don't need a legacy. I am my own legacy. The only person to pass down my stories would be me. I can't have kids. No descendants, no family of my own blood."

Aaron placed a hand on Alex's wrist. Alex jumped. It's not like there wasn't any physical contact in New York. You couldn't go past someone on the subway without bumping hips or touching hands or shoulders.

It's just that it so rarely came from an affectionate point of view.

"That must have been hard. For the both of you." Aaron murmured, sincereness written all over his face, deep in the pupils of his eyes.  
Alex had always had a soft spot for brown eyes.

It made sense that most of his companions had them. Except for Laurens, of course, but he hardly counted as a companion.

"Angelica," Alex started, swallowing visibly to feel a little more in control of his squeezing heart. "Wasn't happy, of course. But she accepted it long before I did. I'd always wanted children so that was a bitter pill to swallow."

"I can imagine," Aaron commented, his hand was still warm over Alex's wrist, two fingers pressed over his pulse point. Surely Aaron could feel the way Alex's heart sped up looking at him.

"It got easier with time. And then George showed up." Alex grinned at the name. His old mentor always brought tears to his eyes and pulled his lips up in a lopsided, goofy smile.

"Who was George?"

"Another immortal. Definitely older than me, a 12th century guy, I think, and an experienced one, at that. He showed up in the middle of the night and asked to stay with us until the storm blew over. Angelica, always the welcoming one of the two of us, let him in, set him up with a bed and a meal and went to sleep. I stayed up to make sure that he wasn't going to rob us. That's when he asked me when I died."

"What?" Aaron looked intrigued and retracted his hand from Alex's wrist. His skin was cold with the loss of Aaron's hand, but he plowed on. Aaron wanted to hear this story, know him better, understand why Alex was so hesitant to slide closer on the bench and embrace him. Who was Alex to deny him anything?

"I thought the same thing," Alex laughed, running a hand through his loose hair. "I thought 'this man must be mad. What a mistake on Angelica's part to let him inside.' He told me that he knew of my family, knew of me. Told me that he knew what I was. Asked me if I wanted to know."

Alex rolled his eyes at the memory, his younger self dumbfounded by George's inquiry, staring at the man in the dim candlelight. "I told him that I'd made a miraculous recovery and been named a witch and that was all to discuss on the matter."

Alex pulled the collar of his t-shirt down, baring a short, puckered scar just over his heart to the yellow light of the Laundromat, and Aaron's prying eyes. "That's how I got this."

"He stabbed you?" Aaron asked incredulously.

Alex nodded, and released the elastic, "With a butter knife. Very painful, not very efficient, but he knew what he was doing. I woke up to Angelica practically throwing him out for trying to kill me, even though she knew I'd been fine in a minute, but she was still pissed. George looked a little surprised, like perhaps he'd made a mistake and I wasn't immortal after all. But I woke up and stopped Angelica and assured her that I was okay. She was there for the rest of the explanation George gave me."

"What'd he say?"

"He told me he could train me, told me he could help ready me for the people who'd try to hurt me. He trained me in sword fighting, taught me how to properly kill an immortal - by chopping off their head - and promised me that he'd help me as much as he could."

A shadow passed over Alex's face. "And then the King came."

Aaron noticed, and hesitated before softly asking, "Who?"

Alex sighed. He always hated this part of the story. The older he got, the bigger the body count he had to take into account. "The King. He used to have a name, once, but it was lost to history, long ago. He was a King in an early age, a cold, greedy, vain one. He was benevolent, and fearless. But he was immortal. He couldn't bare a descendent, an heir, and was driven from the kingdom after two hundred years under his reign. After that time, there were none of his family left to take over, and a new line took over, the same family that rules today. As for the King, he ran. He heard of the immortals and invested his endless time to study and defeat them. He'd been the King, once, and was, of course, trained in sword fighting, and his skill only grew with age."

Aaron watched his face for changes in expression, to tip him off as to where the story was going.

"The thing is, there was a reason he was going after all the other immortals. Legend says that the last one left receives a prize, something they want more than anything. For the King, one can assume he wants power and wealth and his throne back. That's why it's so important to stop him."

"What would you want?" Aaron asked.

"Huh?" Alex jolted in his seat, blinking at Aaron.

"If you were to beat him, receive the prize, what would you want?" Aaron clarified, looking earnest and curious.

"Mortality." Aaron frowned at this. "I can't stand to watch someone else I love outlive me. And I want to be able to have children. More than anything, I want children." Alex licked his lips. "But there's only me and Laurens left to stop him, just the two of us, out of thousands, so what chance do we have?"

Aaron put a hand over his own and squeezed it before sitting back. "The chance that you give yourself. Hope is nice." He nodded to himself. "Now, George?"

Alex grimaced.

"I think that George might have been the reason that he found us, but I'll never know. It was a few months after George had arrived, and I'd gone into town for food and such. When I returned the house was in shambles, the roof half caved in. George was decapitated, and I found Angelica out the back of the house." Alex clenched his fists in the rage and grief he felt whenever he recalled the memory of her death. "It was obvious what the King had done to her, but to top it all off, he'd slit her throat afterwards. Her body was still warm when I found her."

He shook his head and he heard Aaron's soft, "oh no."

"I couldn't bare to be there without her. I buried them and got on a ship. Didn't care where it was going. I ended up in France and fucked around there for a couple of years before I met Lafayette and John."

Aaron brightened up. "The revolutionary war heroes?"

Alex nodded, a small smile gracing his lips. "The very same. But this was almost half a century before the revolutionary war. They were both immortals themselves, and young ones. Lafayette himself was only nineteen when we met - and Laurens was only a century or so old."

"You say that like that's young. I'm twenty six." Aaron said.

Alex waved a hand, in a casual manner, "Practically a foetus in my books."

Aaron laughed.

"So, picture it, three immortal men in pre-revolutionary Versailles. What do we do?"

"Fuck with the French court?"

Alex nodded. "We fucked with the French court. Killed ourselves for the amusement of the Royal Family, and their courtiers. The guillotine was growing in popularity at that time, but we stayed far away from them."

Aaron smiled. Alex was glad that some of his story was lighthearted.

"And then news crossed the sea about restlessness in the colonies, and reckless as we were, we crossed the sea to join the rebellion. Lafayette was sad to leave his courtier wife behind, but he knew it was for a good cause. We met a tailor in a bar who gave us lodgings while the war started up, and later became a spy for the General of the Continental Army. His name was Hercules Mulligan, and he found out we were immortal after John was shot in the street by a British soldier, right before we joined up. Took a lot of explaining but eventually he accepted it."

"I can't believe that you've been alive for five hundred years." Aaron exclaimed suddenly. Alex jumped. The cashier cast a quick look over the both of them and Alex smiled toothily at her. She rolled her eyes and looked back at her phone.

"Not quite five hundred. I'm four-hundred and eighty." He informed Aaron. Aaron's eyes widened.

"Holy shit, you're practically a fossil." He said, and Alex smacked his arm.

"Beware, I'm very lethal," he warned, only half joking. Aaron grinned at him and any aggression melted. "You wanna hear more?"

Aaron nodded eagerly. "Yes."

"Alright. Well, the war was really good for us, very freeing. Of course, we watched friends and comrades die, but we were invaluable to the war. A few years in, we went to a ball, and I met Eliza."

Aaron shuffled closer on the bench and Alex's breath ceased for a moment. His big brown eyes watching him earnestly.

"Who's Eliza?" Aaron asked, in a soft voice.

He exhaled. "My wife. Elizabeth Schuyler."

"Oh my god." Aaron gasped. "You're-"

"Yeah." Alex rubbed the back of his neck. "Not much of a legacy, being a defendant lawyer, but Eliza's own popularity boosted mine. She wanted kids too, but she understood when I told her that it wasn't possible for me. She took it well. Lafayette left the country after we won the war, to start a revolution in France, overthrow the royal family we'd entertained only decades earlier." Alex sighed. This story really was a lot more sad than it was happy. "He ended up in prison with his wife who developed mercury poisoning from the prison water and died. Lafayette was distraught, he hadn't suffered as much losses as I had and I couldn't get to him. He was eventually executed by way of guillotine. He was only in his early thirties."

Aaron grimaced.

"Eliza died soon after that. Malaria was a common disease then, but there was no cure, so I held on as long as I could. And then I had to let her go. Laurens and I holed up together for some long, boring years. We were lovers for a while there, which went about as well as you'd expect it to, because Laurens wanted a lot more from me than I was willing to give. I broke it off just before World War One started. We joined up together. Moved around when we needed to, and ended back up in New York after World War Two."

"You drifted apart?" Aaron inquired.

"You could say that." Alex agreed. "Laurens wasn't interested in joining me in the Vietnam War. I said 'good riddance', called him some colourful words that could mean both mean different parts of genitalia, called him a coward, and ran off to Vietnam." Alex sighed and slumped on the bench. "I met Philip there."

"Philip?" Alex grinned at Aaron. He really was intrigued, no matter his intentions.

"He was nine when I met him, middle of a war ground. I was hiding out in this little house and I met this little boy. Not Vietnamese, or Korean. Little Puerto Rican boy just sitting in this hut. I didn't know how long he'd been there, but I pretty much fell in love with this kid and promised to protect him. I unofficially adopted him that minute. And then some guy burst in with a machine gun and killed me." Alex laughed at the memory, laughed at the look on the guy's face when Alex got back up. "Philip was distraught, he'd lost both his parents in a short amount of time and he'd just lost me. I'd been killed enough in my time that I had a short recovery time so there was probably a minute between em when he shot me and when I got back up and killed him."

Alex rubbed his arm. "I didn't know what to tell Philip so I just said it was magic and I took him back to camp. I officially adopted him. It was the late seventies, just before the war ended. He's probably the best thing that happened to me since Eliza."

"And that brings us to now?" Aaron inquired.

"Yes. Philip's older now, and he got married, and had kids, he did great. He's doing great." Alex said.

"I'm glad." The washing machine dinged and Aaron stood, picking up the basket and dumping his sheets into it. "Would you let me publish this?"

Alex looked down at Aaron's phone beside him and stopped the recording, saving it.

"No. I don't need the King finding me out." Alex replied.

"Got this story for nothing, then?" Aaron joked, shoving his sheets in a dryer on the other side of the Laundromat.

"You might think so. I can't risk the King finding either me or Laurens. Because-"

And then his phone started ringing. Aaron turned around and looked at him. He really was beautiful, and if he wasn't just after Alex for the story, Alex might even think he was interested in him.

"I have to take this," he said, giving the contact a glance. 'Philip' stood out in bold letters.

"Of course," Aaron replied and Alex pressed the Answer button, lifting the phone to his ear.

"Philip? What's wrong? Why are you calling me in the middle of the night?"

"Are you near a tv?" Philip asked, sounding frantic.

"No. What's wrong?"

"It's all over the news, Alex. He got him, the King got John. John's dead."

Alex's heart stopped. "What?" He murmured, unable to believe it.

"They found him in an alley in Harlem."

"I need to go."

"Alex-!"

Alex hung up. Aaron was staring at him from across the Laundromat.

"What's wrong?" Aaron asked, cautiously.

"Laurens is dead. I'm the only one left." Aaron put a hand to his mouth and rushed over, a hand on Alex's forearm.

"Are you alright?" He asked and touched Alex's chin.

"No." Alex muttered and wiped tears from his eyes.

"What are you gonna do?"

Alex looked up. "I'm gonna kill the King."

Aaron stared at him, and nodded. "Let me get my coat."

  
Fin.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed! If you did, please feel free to leave a comment and/or kudos, and track me down on Tumblr @nose-coffee. Again, thank you!


End file.
